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Stonehenge; Midsummer Solstice Sunrise

"As a suggestion, therefore, of what could make a place holy, and so a suitable site for a centre of worship, one might postulate the discovery by an early culture of a site - a hill-top, an island, a crag - which was so placed in relation to another natural feature, as to provide a significant alignment, so that, when viewed from the chosen site, the sun rose - for example on mid-summer day - precisely behind a nearby crag. Here then, would be a place where the gods had provided a natural indicator of a celestial event. The site once found, it would not be difficult to erect additional convenient standing stones or other features which, when viewed from the key spot, would all serve to indicate other similarly significant events. *****A place with two or perhaps even three natural features all providing significant alignments would be very much rarer, and so more holy."   ***    From Henry Lincoln 'The Holy Place'

'At Callanish, on the island of Lewis in the outer Hebrides, the main avenue follows the midsummer moonset alignment and points to Mount Clisham, the highest mountain  on the neighbouring island of Harris.'

From Lundy

Seven of the considered alignments from Lundy cross significant landmarks;  Preseli Mountains (8); 'Bannau Brycheiniog'-' the Black Mountain' (7); Brecon Beacons (6); Mendip hills, Silbury Hill, Avebury and Foreland Point (5); Dunkey Beacon on Exmoor (4) and Stonehenge; Cawsand Beacon on Dartmoor (3); Yes Tor on Dartmoor (2); Rough Tor on Bodmin Moor (1). Many of these hills bear traces of beacons and stone structures,  ( those at Rough Tor are aligned north)  and several are  "significant inland vantage points" .

These are all the highest hills in the South west of Britain.

Two of the three alignments which don't cross significant landmarks are marked by two of the three chapels dedicated to St. Elen, those at Abbotsham and Croyde. The third of these chapels is on Lundy at Beacon Hill. The three chapels form the St Elen Triangle.

From Stonehenge

"Other lunar landmarks noted by Thom in the landscape around Stonehenge included Hanging Langford Camp (Minor Standstill southernmost moonset), Coneybury Barrow (Major Standstill southernmost moonrise) and Gibbet Knoll (northernmost Major Standstill moonset). ‘Stonehenge was no longer an isolated monument,’ wrote Michell, ‘but the centre of a vast system of astronomically placed stations extending far across the Wessex landscape" - Devereux

"Thom deduced that the Major Standstill southerly midsummer moonrise would Occur behind Figsbury Ring, an Iron Age hilifort six and a half miles (10.5 km) southeast of Stonehenge, and would set behind Chain Hill to the southwest. Aubrey Burl comments:    Thom suggested that at these places foresights had been constructed so that people might record and analyse the moon’s movements from Stonehenge, but in this he was probably    mistaken. What matters is that if Stonehenge observers had aligned posts on these positions and then marked the midway point between them they would have produced a line less than 10 from True South, a line, moreover, looking towards Rox Hill, once Rocks Hill, two and a quarter miles (3.6 km) away and a convenient landmark for ‘catching’ the moon on its path across the night sky."  -Devereux

"In the same book ( The Old Straight Track) the author gives several examples of alignments extending, among others, the midsummer solstice line and the equinox line through Stonehenge;- 'Stonehenge is a very striking and convincing example of the connection between sun alignments, long distance tracks, and the use of beacons' . and ' Several of the alignments (perhaps all) have beacon points on them.'  Many sites whose internal alignments have been investigated have been shown to have external alignments. Most frequently to man made objects, a tumulus, a barrow, a church perhaps; occasionally to a man-made marker on a natural feature, a notch on a hill, or a hill top chapel for instance; and least frequent but most wondrous to a hill or mountain top."

beacons

St. Michael Lines and Chapels

Trans-Europe St. Michael Line

Trans-England St. Michael Line

Other St. Michael Lines

 Visual Distances

"From Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde at Marseilles, it is possible to see the Canigou [9,131 ft.] jutting up from beneath the horizon, silhouetted against the setting sun; this occurs every year between 10 and 13 February, and 28 and 31 October. The distance is 160 miles. Strictly speaking it should not be visible from Marseilles: a straight line joining these two points passes, at its lowest, 390 feet below the surface of the Mediterranean."

"Spain and Algeria have been linked for geophysical purposes by light signals travelling a distance of 175 miles over the sea between them."

"from Monaco and Nice it is possible to see the mountains of Corsica 120 miles away."

"From the summit of Mont Blanc [15,781 ft.], it is possible to see places as far away as 210 miles in the right conditions."

"From Bergamo [Italy] Mount Viso in the Alps can be seen at a distance of 145 miles."

"From Malta, one can see Etna, the famous volcano in Sicily, which is 10,741 feet high and 135 miles away."

It may happen that the tops of mountains in the far distance show above the real horizon, whilst their lower slopes remain hidden by the curvature of the earth:-"

"Take the square root of the height of the eye above sea-level in feet, multiply it by 5 and divide the answer by 4. The result is the distance in miles to the apparent horizon ..... In this connection the role of the atmosphere becomes more than usually important. With such great horizon distances, the effects of refraction can become quite large, and they may even bring into view objects which lie below the geometrical horizon and which should therefore be invisible. This occurs because the light is forced to follow a slightly curved path round the surface of the globe."    from 'Larousse Encyclopaedia of Astronomy'  

 " At a position near the village of Moos at the northeast edge of the Dolomites, for example, the sun in the hours bracketing noon passes over three peaks called Elfer, Zwölfer and Einser — thus incorporating the German for 11, 12, 1 — at the appropriate times". - Devereux, P